Elminster_ The Making of a Mage - Ed Greenwood [132]
"Seven months to fashion those!" he snarled. "Seven months!"
Rays of amber radiance leapt from the archwizard's out-thrust hands toward the armored figure. His target abruptly vanished, and the rays stabbed past where it had been, to touch the far wall of the chamber. The stones of the wall seemed to boil briefly as the rays sheared through them, opening a large hole, and continued on across empty air to bore through the distant wall of the north tower in the same manner. Outside, an unseen guard shouted a startled warning to his fellows.
The furious ruler of the Calishar was still staring at the destruction he'd caused when the armored figure winked into view a little behind him and well to the right, at the spot the stone spikes had appeared from-and its armored fists swung down, striking apparently empty air with solid smacks. The visible Ilhundyl fell to the floor without a sound and winked out of existence. An instant later, the Mad Mage reappeared at the far end of the gallery in a blind, snarling fury. "You dare-?"
He growled out a stream of words that echoed and rolled with power, and the Castle of Sorcery shook around him. Impaling spikes shot up from the floor, transfixing the armored figure from below, and then with a thunderous roar, a score of stone blocks crashed down from the high ceiling and smashed the intruder flat. As the dust of their landings rolled lazily across the floor, wall-panels opened all along the gallery. From behind the panels drifted three dead-looking, rotting beholders, eyestalks questing stiffly back and forth for a foe. A glowing cage on a chain plunged down from a ceiling trapdoor, burst open as its spell-glow faded, and six winged green serpents boiled out of it, jaws snapping angrily as they swooped around the gallery, seeking prey. Here and there on the gallery floor, stone blocks turned over with slow uneasiness to reveal glowing magical glyphs.
The hard-eyed Mad Mage waited with hands raised to unleash more destruction as the chamber settled into slow silence. The undead eye tyrants floated menacingly about, finding nothing to turn their beams on, and the flying snakes darted excitedly here and there. One snake dived at Ilhundyl, and he crisped it in the air with a single muttered word. Silence fell again. Perhaps he really had managed to destroy the intruder.
The Mad Mage spoke another spell to raise the stone blocks from the shattered armor. They drifted upward obediently- and then rose to one side. Ilhundyl's jaw dropped. He watched in horror as the blocks, undead beholders, snakes, glass shards, and all began to move in a slow spiral before him.
"Cease!" Ilhundyl cried, and called up the strongest shatter-spell he knew. The spiral's rotation faltered for one breath-stopping moment… and then resumed, quickening until things were whirling rapidly around the chamber.
Ilhundyl backed away, for the first time in years knowing the cold taste of fear. More wind-sculptures shattered as the aerial maelstrom swept blocks or undead beholders through them. Their shards glittered in a rising circle to join the spiral, now sweeping down the gallery at Ilhundyl.
The Mad Mage backed away, then turned and ran, hands flashing through hasty and intricate spell-passes. Abruptly there were running Ilhundyls all over the chamber, flickering here and there in a complex dance. The whirlwind swept them all up. One body was promptly dashed against a wall; it crumpled like a broken doll and was gone. Another Ilhundyl suddenly appeared on a balcony high in the gallery, and cast a glowing crystal down into the storm below. The gem flashed once-and in that flash of radiance it and all the whirling items vanished, leaving the chamber empty save for the shattered glass spires on their pedestals.
Ilhundyl looked down on them and said coldly, "Be revealed."
The hawk-nosed mage melted into view-on the balcony beside him, inside his protective spellshields!
Ilhundyl recoiled,